Empire Market - Empire Darknet Overview

Empire Market is a darknet market (2018-2020). This Empire market profile explains its history, operation and status as an educational review with verifiable sources and no onion links.

Empire Market

Launched	2018
Closed	August 2020
Founder(s)	Unknown administrators
Network	Tor hidden service (.onion)
Currency	Bitcoin and Monero
Est. revenue	Estimated 30 million dollars lost
Peak size	One of the largest at the time

Exit scam

Empire Market became one of the largest darknet markets of the late 2010s and then collapsed in August 2020 in one of the biggest exit scams ever seen.

History

Launched in 2018, Empire grew as Dream Market wound down, taking over the role of default large market. It marketed itself as secure and stable, offering both Bitcoin and Monero payments and multi-sig escrow.

Operation

In August 2020 Empire suddenly went offline. Vendor and user funds held in escrow — estimated by some at more than 30 million dollars — disappeared with the operators. No seizure was announced, and the administrators have never been identified.

Impact

The collapse hit thousands of vendors and buyers simultaneously and once again demonstrated the danger of centralized escrow, even on markets that advertised multi-sig security.

Legacy

Empire's exit scam accelerated the industry's shift toward Monero-only, smaller and harder-to-raid markets such as White House Market, and toward escrow systems that give vendors control of funds.